How the digital trade agenda will unlock the global economy's potential

Call for modernised trade rules

In the world economy of the past, nations with the best ships and ports were able to establish global trade leadership and the growth that came along with it.

Today, global trade has gone digital, and in the digital economy, software-enabled products and services like cloud computing and data analytics are the key drivers of growth and competitiveness.

In fact, the world now invests more than $3.7 trillion on information and communications technologies per year; in the Western Europe region, we spend $753 billion annually.

Maximize return

But to maximize our return on that investment, it is important for policymakers to eliminate barriers that could inhibit the continued expansion of digital trade.

It's clear that software-driven technology is transforming every sector of the global economy. For example, thanks to unprecedented processing power and vast data storage capabilities, banks can detect and prevent fraud by analysing large numbers of transactions; doctors are now able to study historical trends in medical records to find more effective treatments; and manufacturers can pinpoint the sources of delays in global supply chains.

International Marketplace

Against the backdrop of this kind of innovation, any country that wants to compete in today's international marketplace must have a comprehensive digital agenda at the core of its growth and development strategy.

In addition to domestic initiatives like investing in education and skills training, or developing IT infrastructure, the policymakers can succeed in laying the groundwork for broad-based growth in the digital age if they focus on three big priorities:

First, any bilateral or multilateral trade agreement needs to facilitate the growth of innovative services such as cloud computing. As part of that, there should be clear rules that allow information to move freely across borders and prevent governments from mandating where servers must be located except in very specific situations.

Walling off data in today's networked world is both futile and ill-advised; no national economy can grow as fast in isolation as it can if it is connected with others.

Second, to promote innovation, trade agreements must secure intellectual property protections and encourage the use of voluntary, market-led technology standards instead of country-specific criteria that force companies to jump through different technical hoops every time they enter a new local market.

Third, all governments should ensure there are level playing fields for all competitors so customers have access to the best products and services the world has to offer.

Transparency

As part of this, they should be fully transparent in how they choose which technologies to buy, basing decisions on whether a product or service best meets their needs and provides good value, not on where the technology was developed.

At the same time, disclosures about government surveillance programs in the US and other countries have sparked a renewed focus on data protection and personal privacy. Those concerns are certainly worthy of debate and careful reform.

But it is critically important not to conflate separate issues: We can't let national security concerns derail digital trade — because it would come at the expense of economic growth and social progress.

There is precedent for navigating periods of change such as this in the global trade arena. Policymakers stood at a similar inflection point in the 1980s when they recognized the keys to growth in the coming decades would be intellectual property, services and foreign direct investment.

With foresight and hard work, they updated trade rules in the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations to ensure commitments were in place to provide a check against protectionist impulses in those areas.

Now, as governments pursue robust growth agendas for the digital economy, it is critical that we modernise trade rules once again.